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Life and death in the multispecies commons

journal contribution
posted on 2024-09-10, 02:38 authored by Marcus Baynes-RockMarcus Baynes-Rock
The multispecies commons is the kind of place in which human–animal entanglements are made most explicit. It is where social, biological and historical processes are so inextricably entwined with wider ecological processes as to be inseparable. Here I describe one such place: the area outside a gate in the ancient, defensive wall around the historic city of Harar, Ethiopia. It was at this place that a solitary, poisoned hyena set in motion a series of events which culminated in a conflict between two hyena clans; a conflict in which the local humans were participants. To gain an understanding of the events I follow the threads of histories, landscapes, territoriality and social engagement between species to reveal how this place demands interdisciplinary study. It dramatically exemplifies the ways in which humans and non-humans are entangled in more-than-social processes through which they co-shape each others’ worlds. The multispecies commons explicitly deconstructs limited conceptions of the social and weaves them back together with multiple other threads that coalesce to create a greater, tangled web of ecological processes.

History

Journal

Social Science Information

Volume

52

Pagination

210-227

ISSN

0539-0184

eISSN

1461-7412

Language

en

Publication classification

C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Issue

2

Publisher

SAGE Publications

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